Friday Photo – A pet monkey in the rainforest – in Ecuador
February 27, 2009 by HeatherCowper
What do you keep as a pet if you live in the rainforest? Not a pet snake, that’s for sure. We saw this little girl and her pet monkey in the village of Pacayaku, on our river journey down the Rio Bobonaza in Ecuador.
Normally these little creatures are adopted as pets when their mother has been killed in a hunt and brought back to the village as food. Although it seems unthinkable to us to kill a species with features so close to our own, as a meat eater I can’t deny the villagers one of the few local sources of meat in their diet. At least the babies get lots of cuddles as their parents are roasted over the fire.
If you’re in the US and have been enjoying Mark and Olly on the Travel Channel in their experiences with the Machigenga tribe in the Amazon basin of Peru, you may like to see some videos of Mark falling in love with a pet monkey of his very own. You can see how irresistable these little monkeys are as pets.
You can see all the other Friday photos on Delicious Baby here
See my Ecuador photos on Flickr here
Read Related Posts
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Sleeping in a canoe in Ecuador
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Jackie on Sat, 28th Feb 2009 3:43 am
Fascinating! Really. And a very sweet shot. Glad to have stumbled across your blog.
: )
Debbie Dubrow on Sat, 28th Feb 2009 5:54 am
What a sweet picture, though I do feel for those poor monkey babies.
Nomadic Matt on Sun, 1st Mar 2009 2:52 pm
i want a pet monkey!
Tammie Dooley on Sun, 1st Mar 2009 5:14 pm
Great site! Love your topics, your style, and your photography. Glad I found you. Very enjoyable.
Dominique on Mon, 2nd Mar 2009 3:07 am
Cute show, but as you point out…the adult monkeys don’t always enjoy such a harmonious relationship with humans in some places.
We recently went to see the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the Year show (our Detroit Zoo is the North American debut for the show and only US venue for this fab show). The most disturbing shot in the show was one of a monkey being prepared for sale in Gabon (tossed in a fire to strip it of its fur)…which won the One Earth Award for UK photographer David Maitland. It was, as Maitland said, “deeply upsetting”…although from what I read of Maitland’s thoughts, he took the shot to bring attention to illegal trafficking in bushmeat he saw as he traveled.
This is the link for the main page of the exhibit. It’s pretty easy to find Maitland’s photo from there if you must see it. Lots of great work in the show, and lots of more uplifting subjects as well
Dominique on Mon, 2nd Mar 2009 3:08 am
Oops…here’s the link
http://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit-us/whats-on/temporary-exhibitions/wpy/onlineGallery.do
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sparky on Fri, 1st May 2009 4:31 pm
its cute